WKU and Mammoth Cave National Park are partnering in an effort to revive the Folklorist in the Park program.
The effort is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and will document the cultural heritage in and around the Mammoth Cave region. Josh Chrysler, a recent graduate from the WKU Folk Studies graduate program, has been hired as the project’s summer folklorist.
“What I’ll be doing is going around talking to people who live in the communities in and around Mammoth Cave, and I’ll be doing ethnographic interviews and oral histories documenting the traditional culture, arts, and music of the region," Chrysler said.
The materials collected this summer during the project will be housed in the Folklife Archives in the Kentucky Museum at WKU.
Chrysler will also work with Mammoth Cave National Park to develop evening programs for the public this summer focused on traditional arts and culture from the area.
Chrysler and the Kentucky Folklife Program would also like to ask for help in this project. If you or anybody you know practices a traditional skill or art, including but not limited to basketmaking, quilting, traditional music, hunting practices, traditional food preparation or recipes, contact Josh Chrysler at (270) 791-8653.
